Crime Fiction Alphabet: Venom by Joan Brady

"How long have you been sitting here in my solarium, reading my newspaper and drinking my coffee?" he said to David.

Title: Venom
Author: Joan Brady
ISBN: 9780743267908
Publisher: Simon and Schuster/2010
Pages: 470

Physicist Helen Freyl owns a colony of bees, whose venom can save people from radiation poisoning. Everyone worth is salt is after the same venom. Helen is not aware of the facts but she is not keen to sell her colony of bees to anyone. Sir Charles Hay, a friend of her late father wants it badly and even woos Helen to get hold of it. He succeeds in getting engaged to her but somehow Helen is not very keen to marry him. When a few people in her vicinity are found dead, who have been involved in finding out facts about Soviet villages deliberately contaminated with radiation poisoning, Helen knows her life is in danger.

She calls for help from David Marion, whom she had known from her childhood, but who is now presumed dead by everyone. Both join forces to get into the bottom of the industrial espionage. What they find is greed, massive human tragedy, all in the name to gain control of a venom, which can save millions of lives. Everyone is out there to make moneyout of the venom.

With an ex-convict as the hero, a phycist as our heroine, both having a strong attraction between them right from their childhood, it makes an interesting book. Helen's grandmother is so spunky that she makes the book come alive. Other secondary characters too are well depicted and their presence is essential for the book to move forward. The book stings us alright, but at the right places. Fast paced, and very well written, this Venom is addictive!

Thanks to publishers for my copy of ARC.